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It was a busy thrifting weekend. Up front warning, this will be a long post! Went to several sales near my house and got some gooood stuff. There are two clear favorites! More on those in a bit.

The weekend's finds:

Sale #1 was a very clean, organized, estate sale. Clean + Organized = Overpriced. Everything, I mean EVERYTHING had a price tag on it. Boo. I prefer collecting all the things I like and then offering one price at the end. I figured this sale would be a bust... until I went to the basement. The estate worker that was stationed down there was so sweet and gave me some good deals. Here's the loot:

2 turquoise trays

Little wooden stool - to be painted

Old suitcase

Vintage wallpaper

Corkboard. In process of being painted. More to come...

And here is one of my FAVORITE finds of the weekend. A bag FULL of vintage cards. They are soooo cute and are deserving of their own separate post. Stay tuned.

Sale #1 included a few other items like a small ladder, a milkglass bowl, and some yarn & twine.

Sale #2 was also an estate sale, but mostly everything was being sold in the garage so I'm not sure what to call it. Everything was pretty picked over (from what I overheard) but I still found a few gems, including this retro metal tea cart that was buried under some blankets.

Tea cart. To be painted and madeover.

Chein Flour & Sugar Tins

Chein Coffee & Tea Tins

Vintage Wilson Racket. Used similar ones in C's vintage sports room. They are great for decoration.

I also bought a cute vintage juice pitcher that was in perfect condition. It looked just liked this one...

Sale #3 was a garage sale. There was no one there, the guy had to come out of the house to help me, and there wasn't that much stuff. Eh, figured this one might be a bust. I couldn't have been more wrong... this sale provided my other FAVORITE find of the weekend.

First let's start out with some of the random stuff I picked up:

Rusty Metal Door Plate

Metal Roll-Up Tape Measure

House Numbers. Numbers like these are all over Pottery Barn and the like.

Glass Jar

Little Pink Apron

And here is that other FAVORITE find I mentioned:

These are rolls of tickets (obviously) from the old Mayfield Theater in Little Italy. I honestly was just buying them to give to Connor to play with, but after finding out that the guy's grandfather used to own the theater and hearing a few of his amazing stories, these became 100x cooler! If anyone would like a few of these tickets, let me know, I'm happy to share.

And last but not least is a little something I plucked out of someone's trash. And just to clarify... I don't go driving around for the specific purpose of garbage picking. Not to say that I won't someday (what? I have to leave myself an opening...) I just happen to see this stuff while I'm out n' about. I do feel kinda weird taking stuff so I just tell myself I'm doing the world a favor by keeping it out of a landfill.

One thing I love about secondhand shopping is all the memories that come flooding back when you see items from your childhood. Like that orange tupperware pitcher with the white lid and little orange button at the top --- that takes me back to the summer days of making grape kool-aid with 2+ CUPS of sugar. Or the Nerf swords I saw that took me right back to the many basement competitions with my brother.

Usually I pass these items up because although they bring back a great memory, I really don't have a need for them, nor do I have the room.

Then I saw this candy/nut dispenser.

Ask me about my friend Laura's house growing up and I could have recalled a lot of memories, but I probably wouldn't have remembered this candy dispenser. It never played a significant role in our friendship. There was no story behind it. But the second I actually saw it at the Solon PTA Budget Bin sale, I was taken back in time. I could clearly envision it sitting on the counter in their basement next to the fish tank against the back wall.

I decided to buy it for Laura as a joke. She could see it. Laugh. Then donate it to Goodwill.

But after I bought it, I started to think that maybe I could give it a "makeover" and turn it into something that can be a part of her kid's childhoods.

So, after some thorough cleaning, a few coats of paint, a little bit of sanding, and two bags of jelly beans, this ol' candy dispenser was ready for a night on the town!

And the before/after shot. Holla!

I was really happy with how it turned out and thought Laura would love it. I started to get nervous though before I gave it to her... I was thinking "what if that memory I had wasn't really a memory at all, but a dream. What if she never had this candy dispenser in her basement and is going see this and think 'what the hell is this?'"

Luckily it was a memory. Phew!

Laura has been a good friend of mine for about 26 years! She is a SUPER talented writer and has already published a Young Adult book called The Liar Society with her sister, Lisa. Check out their blog, Lisa And Laura Write.

Took a trip down to Cuyahoga Falls today to meet my friend Laura at Village Discount Outlet. I've only been there one time before, about 13 years ago. I was with D (we had just started dating) and in an attempt to be funny I zipped myself into a too small, super tight, 70s jumpsuit. D loved it. We had a good laugh. Haha. I went to take it off and... the zipper got stuck. Straight. up. STUCK! After much zipper jostling, some deep breaths and me almost peeing in the jumpsuit, I was set free.

Unlucky for Laura I did not get stuck in a jumpsuit this time. I did however fill my cart with some good finds. .

I don't normally shop at Coldwater Creek, but I've bought my mom a few gift cards so I think I got on their mailing list. Fine by me because they sent me a catalog with a $25 coupon to use toward anything -- no minimum purchase! Of course I went straight to the clearance section of their website. In addition to already reduced prices they are offering an ADDITIONAL 40% OFF plus FREE SHIPPING until midnight tonight (4/22). Look. what. I found. Dying over these!

These are on sale right now for $24.99 plus 40% off. That's only $14.99! I couldn't decide on a color so why not get them both, right? $30 for both of them, minus my $25 coupon, plus $2.32 in tax. Total for both necklaces - $7.30. What a great way to end the weekend!

I went to an estate sale near my house a few weekends ago and walked away with a trunk full of vintage goodeness. Total cost - $15! I'm not sure what I'll do with a lot of the items yet, but I know they'll eventually find a spot in the house. If not, I could always sell some of it on the Etsy shop that I don't have, right? I've always wondered if any of the stuff I buy is actually worth anything so I'm heading to Etsy to find out!

Here is the $15 trunk full minus one item that I'll get to in a minute.

It includes a lot of random stuff like wire baskets, a metal bucket, old shutters, a little side table,
some wooden numbers,two recipe boxes,a huge stack of carbon paper,
vintage Christmas ornaments, etc. But there are a few items that I
think might be real steals!

The first is this 3 drawer Cole Steel filing cabinet. This is the item I forgot to include in the big group pic above. It's really heavy and I just left it in the trunk for a day or two before finally dragging it out. I've been seeing stuff like this all over Pinterest so I knew something cool could be done with it.

I found a few similar pieces on Etsy but none exact. This was the closest and it's being sold for $40!!

Next is this wooden shoe form. This would look cute atop a stack of books!

These were ALL OVER Etsy! Most ranged in price from $12-$35, however none of them looked the same as this one. The only one I could find that was close was this one being sold for $55!!

Last and most surprising is this little ruler.

Turns out it's called a Lufkin 966 Folding Ruler. Found this one on Etsy being sold for $12. Not a ton of money, but much more than I ever imagined it was worth.

And there you have it. $15 for that trunk full of items and 3 of them are potentially worth a total of $107!

I've been wanting to make a big wooden sign and finally had a reason... my dad's 60th birthday!

I have been loving all the wood signs on Pinterest and was thankful to come across this great tutorial on My Pink Life. Great blog by the way -- Aimee paints signs on old barn doors and they are one-of-a-kind!

First step was to find a piece of wood. In my head I envisioned being on HGTV and going to this really cool "salvage yard" in Cape Cod where I'd find a perfectly imperfect weathered plank with chipping paint and a ton of character...

Then I remembered I live in Cleveland and drove to my local lumber store.

No beautifully weathered planks, but a ton of inexpensive scrap wood on the project cart. Fair enough.

I chose this cedar plank.

It had a little bit of character to it but I really wanted something that looked old and worn. Time to bust out the chains!

I can't remember where I learned this but you can add character to wood by beating it with metal chains and other random objects that look like big screws but I really have no idea what they are. Here's a before and after:

I forgot to take pictures of the next few steps, but basically I followed this tutorial. I painted the plank with a very light coating of white semi-gloss paint, then let it dry overnight.

For the message, I knew I wanted it to say "Papa Henry" and somehow have the number 60 on it. After some brainstorming I decided to include some type of symbol that represented his love of motorcycles. I chose to do the infamous "Route 66" sign but swap out the 66 for 60.

I printed my message out on paper then traced it onto the wood plank using carbon paper. I then painted the tracing using basic acrylic craft paints ($1 per bottle).

I started to sand it down (letter A) but realized I should take a pic. Here it is before I sanded the rest of it down for extra distressing.

Did I say "before I sanded it down?"

I of course forgot to take a pic after the final round of sanding/distressing, but here's a pseudo complete before/after: